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Since I’m between jobs, I’ve geeked out a little bit.

Got a Thingamakit for my birthday. After completing assembly, In the spirit of the gift I got from Greg (thanks Greg!), I had all my other gadgets introduce themselves to it yesterday.

Then today I modified my iPhone ProClip mount so that I can simply drop the iPhone in the slot and have it both charge and feed audio into my car stereo. Before it was two separate connections.

Materials:

• ProClip iPhone 3G mount with swivel (here’s the mount for the original iPhone)
• Proclip mount specific to your car
• iPhone 3G dock (here’s the dock for original iPhones)
• Coping saw, file, screwdriver, drill and bits, vise, hacksaw, hammer
• A 2″ x” 6″ strip of steel from the strongtie section of your home improvement store

This was a simple project. Check out the captions for some basic details on how I did it.

My birthday is coming!

Don’t miss the surprise ending.

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Had a fun block party with the neighbors today.

I love G-Force. It’s a computer program that performs real-time music visualization.

My home theater setup includes a SqueezeBox with two outputs. The digital output goes into my receiver, and the analog output goes to a laptop about 25 feet away (the distance is so I won’t notice the fan noise). G-Force runs on the laptop, and the real-time visuals are sent in 720p high definition via a DVI/HDMI cable back to my big new TV.

The effect of all this is that I can sit on my couch, turn the music up, and enjoy awesome looking eye candy that is synchronized to my music.

G-Force has a really robust scripting system that veejays can use in nightclubs and stuff. I used the scripting system to create this introduction to G-Force and its abilities.

Here are my G-Force Scripts if you want to see them at something better than YouTube quality.

We took a stab at the Grand Canyon this week with Jim, Dan, Peter and my parents. This one didn’t turn out quite as planned, but it was fun anyway.

Strike one: the Grand Gulch Wash road was impassable. Roadbuilding efforts proceeded while Jim scouted ahead.

Strike two: The Pigeon Wash road was impassable north of Savanic Mine. Got a good macho shot of a couple trucks ascending a medium-difficulty incline though.

Strike two-and-a-half: I got a flat tire on the way back down this nail-biter of an exposed road.

Strike three: my dad’s tooth went south on him, requiring a hasty exit to the dentist’s chair.

If you have some time to explore, detailed route information and over 100 geocoded photos are presented for your enjoyment in Google Earth. Click here to get Google Earth for free, and click here to see our trip in 3D.

If you just want to see a few nice pictures, here are my favorites.